Lee Odden says, “While nearly 90% of companies are using social media for marketing, the distance between “using” and “succeeding” is of Grand Canyon proportions. In the early stages of social media marketing maturity, business use of social media tends to go through a series of phases from not doing anything to beginning to monitor social channels to sharing content and building community. Eventually, they find their way to some form of social sales or social commerce. To jump start the move towards a social media marketing strategy that starts to align with measurable business outcomes,... [...]

Jeanne Jennings says, “This small business is attempting email marketing, but it has a lot of room for improvement. Can you apply any of these tips to your strategy? I love email marketing. It makes me really sad when I see a small business trying to leverage the power of the channel making small mistakes which could be the difference between success and failure. Case in point: an email I received earlier this month. It appears below; I’ve redacted the details to protect the organization. To set the scene: I attended a business networking event at this restaurant and dropped my business... [...]

Jesse Pickrain says, “It’s another packed house in the ROI track with LinkedIn’s Jason Miller and NewsCred’sShafqat Islam taking the stage after Shane Snow’s inspiring session. The duo did not disappoint. When it was over, the gentleman seated behind me said, “that was the best presentation I’ve seen yet.” The gentleman next to him concurred. Shafqat kicked it off with a fantastic segue from Shane Snow’s Che Guevara story, telling the crowd about the Che poster he proudly displayed on his wall when he was younger”. Creating Content That Drives Revenue: Jason Miller and... [...]

Jeanne Jennings says, “A few tips for alerting readers in a friendly, rather than militant, way that you don’t monitor certain email addresses. A full half of the transactional messages I recently reviewed in my inbox asked me not to reply to the email. In this age when most companies are actively trying to engage them in social media, why don’t they want email replies? Here are some reasons – along with ways, if you must, to make “Do not reply to this email” more reader-friendly. First off, I do understand why companies do this: they don’t want to be responsible... [...]

Lee Odden says, “The most elusive of white rabbits in the content marketing world seems to be the question of how to best measure ROI. According to a study by CMI and MarketingProfs, over 50% of marketers are investing more budget in content marketing and the most effective marketers spend more than double than the least effective marketers. While budgets are moving in the right direction, measuring ROI still has some progress to make. According to HubSpot’s State of Inbound Marketing study, less than 50% of marketers can confirm content marketing’s positive ROI“. How to Show... [...]

Jeanne Jennings says, “This guest post from Abigail Boswell provides new research on subject lines, courtesy of Touchstone, a new tool from Alchemy Worx. Note from Jeanne: All of us at Alchemy Worx are very excited about Touchstone, a new subject line tool we’ve developed that’s currently in beta (sign up for free here). Below is an article written by Abigail Boswell, a marketing manager with our agency, with some learnings on subject line performance from Touchstone. The subject line is the most critical piece of content in your email campaign – it is seen by and influences... [...]

Lee Odden says, “As companies mature in their use of content marketing from simply creating “more” content for SEO purposes to creating really useful content designed to reach specific customer segments to influence business outcomes, the importance of content differentiation becomes paramount. According to the Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs’ annual studies, over 90% of B2B and B2C marketers are using content marketing. That’s a tremendous amount of competition and to stand out, successful marketers are elevating their content quality and use of visual elements. In my... [...]

Lee Odden says, “Marketers are really jumping on the content bandwagon while the definition of what “content marketing” really means varies greatly between the SEO, PR, advertising and custom publishing industries. For example, I recently read a very clever post about content marketing on a popular SEO website providing an impressive array of content types, tactics, tips and shortcuts for content to be created and used as a marketing asset. But not once were “customer journey”, “buying cycle”, “customer insight” or related concepts mentioned”. The Power of Empathy for... [...]

David Bakke says, “When used in conjunction with savvy social media marketing tools, local marketing tactics can help you reach new and conversion-ready audiences. The face of marketing has changed a lot in recent years. Many companies are busy capitalizing on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest, as well as some of the newer players on the market. But while there’s no disputing that social media is king right now, you may actually be doing yourself a disservice if you focus on it to the exclusion of all else. Local marketing is a tried-and-true way to... [...]

Dave Hendricks says, “If email marketers aren’t leading the way in designing not just for a mobile-friendly world, but for a mobile-first one, they are missing out on huge conversion and marketing opportunities. In 2011, Marc Andreessen said, “Software is eating the world.” In 2013, BEA said, “Mobile is eating the world.” In 2014, The Atlantic said, “Mobile is devouring attention. “ And now, mounting evidence shows that email is eating mobile. In the report that we released earlier this month, “Email Everywhere: Adapting to the Mobile Nature... [...]